


In A Crowd Of Thousands

by MaryaDmitrievnaLikesSundays



Series: Two Fics That Were Too Similar To Warrant Their Own Areas But Too Different To Be Mashed Together Into One [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Torture, Drugs, Hallucinations, Hallucinogens, High School, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Injury, Kidnapping, Major Character Injury, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Stabbing, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-04-23 01:09:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19140550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryaDmitrievnaLikesSundays/pseuds/MaryaDmitrievnaLikesSundays
Summary: Then, suddenly, the shrieking stopped. Ned lowered his hands hesitantly, as did the rest of the crowd. His head spun as he looked around the room for the source of the noise, but faltered. Every face he saw displayed a raw confusion and fear, and as he slowly swiveled to see where it was directed, so did his own.Because the screen’s friendly welcome banner was gone. And in its place was grainy footage of Queens’s own Spider-Man.——Or, Spider-Man’s torture is live-streamed for all of Midtown High to see





	1. Chapter 1

Ned was getting used to being alone again.

 

He was an only child, and an awkward one at that. He had been alone up until middle school. Then, his eyes landed on a tiny kid sitting in the corner in a Star Trek T-shirt, and for the next four years, he wasn’t alone for even a second.

 

And then Spider-Man happened. Peter started ducking out of classes, cancelling sleep overs, and even though Ned knew why, it didn’t make it any easier. But, he was learning how to be alone again.

 

Which was why he thought nothing of Peter’s absence that morning. Sure, it was odd that Peter would ditch school on awards day and leave May behind, but if that meant Spider-Man could save a hundred lives, then it was fine by him.

 

He filed into the auditorium along with his other award-winning classmates. They all sat in even rows of chairs, a group of barely forty. Those who won nothing sat on the bleachers to their left with the parents and teachers, watching with envious or bored expressions. On his right, a large projector read  _WELCOME_ in gigantic, flickering letters.

 

The school’s principal walked up to the podium, tapped the microphone twice, and began, “Ladies and gentlemen of Midtown Tech, it is my pleasure to present the honored students of this school year. Whether they have won awards in mathematics, sciences, arts, or athletics, all of the children before you have worked incredibly hard to achieve what they have. 

 

“To begin this ceremony, I will announce those students who have earned special recognization in the performing arts. First, Cindy Moon.”

 

The principal continued rattling off students’ names, but Ned wasn’t listening. He was focused on the empty chair two rows in front of him. As far as he knew there were no national emergencies, so why would Peter go on a mission on a day like this? He was meant to receive at least seven awards, and May had come out to watch. 

 

Ned picked her out of the small crowd, so much younger than the rest. Her eyes met his and she mouthed  _Where’s Peter_? Ned just shrugged, but his worry only grew.

 

Ned’s leg jiggled nervously, gaining speed as the principal droned on. Hardly a minute had passed when Flash leaned onto the back of Ned’s seat and whispered, “Hey, where’s Parker? Too lazy to even show up?”

 

Ned rotated his head the slightest amount, just enough to make sure Flash could hear him. “Internship stuff.”

 

Flash laughed. “Yeah, right. And he didn’t even bother to tell his aunt?”

 

”Just shut up, okay?”

 

Flash sucked his teeth but returned to his seat. Ned could practically see his folded arms and sour face.

 

As the hour limped by, Ned won awards for both computer science and outstanding marching band performance, but his excitement was null. His nerves increased with every second that Peter didn’t send a check-in text, and by the halfway mark he was almost obsessively checking his phone, taking it out of his pocket only moments after he had tucked it back away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw May do the same.

 

The principal called him to the podium once more. He wasn’t even sure what for this time. He squeezed out of his seat robotically, detached, and couldn’t help but stare at the small pile of certificates that were meant for Peter. His stomach tied itself in knots just looking at them. He looked away.

 

He nodded to the principal, smiled for a picture, and was relieved to step away from the center of the room when a resounding shriek drowned out the polite applause of parents. Ned clapped his hands over his ears and scrunched his eyes shut, but the haunting wail still persisted. It flickered, on and off, wavering in and out of existence in choppy segments too small to even truly notice. 

 

Ned heard people scramble around him, the technical theatre director and robotics teacher both panicking over knobs and buttons that did nothing to quiet the slicing sound. He opened his eyes and saw that the projector’s cheery display had too been corrupted, occasionally flashing a dark setting across the screen.

 

Then, suddenly, the shrieking stopped. Ned lowered his hands hesitantly, as did the rest of the crowd. His head spun as he looked around the room for the source of the noise, but faltered. Every face he saw displayed a raw confusion and fear, and as he slowly swiveled to see where it was directed, so did his own.

 

Because the welcome banner was gone. And in its place was grainy footage of Queens’s own Spider-Man.

 

Ned let out a sigh of relief that his mask remained firmly over his face, but that relief dissolved into terror as he took in the details of the video. Spider-Man’s suit was torn and dirty, some rips leaking blood. His left shoulder was far from its rightful place, and every breath seemed labored, like even expanding his lungs hurt. Worst of all, though, were the thick metal cuffs holding him to a chair, coated with blood and torn flesh, evidence of a futile struggle.

 

Funnily enough, Peter seemed almost...relaxed. He slouched onto the back of his chair, tapping his fingers idly on the armrests. 

 

“Alright!” Said a voice from behind the camera. The crowd jumped; how many people were in the room? “It seems like we’ve got it all set up.”

 

Ned heard shuffling, then a second face came into view. This one was thin, pale, wrinkled and pruned. Slightly too excited eyes rested deep in their sockets, and a small smile defied hard-set frown lines. 

 

“Now, Spider-Man,” he said, pointing a long finger at the camera, “Do you know what that is?”

 

Peter cocked his head. His voice was confident, as if he were at a lunch with friends rather than cuffed to a bloody metal chair. “Uh, a camera?”

 

”Yes. And do you know where it is streaming to?”

 

”Probably...a stripper’s laptop.”

 

The man’s face turned sour and he moved an inch closer to the chair. Peter flinched back, so slightly only his closest friend could have noticed. Ned felt freezing fear flood his veins.

 

But the man just smiled again and said, “No, it is streaming straight to the the Times Square main billboard...and gymnasium of Midtown Tech. You know all about that place, don’t you?”

 

”Yeah, I walk my dog around it sometimes. Get to the point, goon,” Peter lied. Ned was taken aback; how had his quiet, innocent friend fallen into this confident personality, one that knew nothing of Midtown or academic decathalon or a thousand-piece LEGO set? Even as his voice shook, he examined a rip in his shaking glove like there was no threat in sight.

 

”Oh, but it’s much more significant than that, isn’t it? You know those students. You know those teachers—“

 

”Alright, get to the point, dude, because I’ve got a three-O’clock at that shawarma place and— _fuck_!”

 

Peter cut himself off as a fist connected with his cheekbone. His head snapped to the side, breathing heavily as he raised a bare finger to the gash. It came away bloody and  _holy shit this guy has brass knuckles_.

 

Gasps resounded throughout the room, gasps at their hero being hurt, but only Ned knew who was really getting hurt.  His lip began to tremble as tears welled up in his eyes, tears he hardly noticed. 

 

The man wiped the blood off of the iron and onto a handkerchief he produced from his pants. He stuffed it back into his pocket and said, “Now, I’m going to have to ask you to remain quiet for the remainder of this video. Your voice might give away the surprise before I can.”

 

”Surprise? Aw, you didn’t have to get a present for me!”

 

“Well, if they recognize your voice, they may find out who you aren’t before I can even unmask you.”

 

Peter stopped dead. He stared at the man for a long, silent moment. His breathing had all but stopped. “ _What_?” He asked.

 

The man smiled again. “Oh, so that’s what you’re afraid of. Not pain, not death. You’re afraid of the world seeing who you really are.”

 

”Who I really am? I’m—I’m nobody, just your average Joe. I—I go to work, I come back, I do this, that’s it!”

 

”But that’s not the truth, is it?”

 

Peter began tugging at his restrains once more, his cool facade all but melted away. His entire body heaved in time with his struggle. “Dude, come on! I’m serious, I’m a nobody. At least—at least I don’t release spores into the air to try and kill every woman in Manhattan! Like, every woman? Seriously?”

 

The man grumbled as he pulled on rubber gloves, taken from a table somewhere off-screen. He said, “I will admit that some parts of that plan were rather faulty, but had you just  _stopped bothering me_ it would have all worked out fine. You are to blame for all of this, Spider-Man.”

 

“I’m to blame? For real? You’re a murderer and a freak! I’m just trying to keep people alive!”

 

”And I just want to get my rightful revenge.”

 

”Dude, revenge plot? This is ridiculous! I feel like I’m in some bad fanfiction a depressed fifteen year old wrote about me—“

 

” _Enough_!” 

 

The man moved sharply, thrusting his hand towards Peter’s stomach. In the darkness it was hard to make out quite what he did, but Peter cried out and doubled over.

 

After a moment, the man pulled back with a sickening squelch. Ned himself cried out when he saw what the man as holding; a long knife, coated to the hilt in blood. He was not alone in his horror. Many of his classmates exclaimed explicitives, and a symphony of thumps behind him implied that a few students’ bodies could not handle the picture before them. 

 

As the man retreated his face was calm, his movements poised as if he were just cleaning off a knife for dinner. Peter stayed bowed in his chair as blood pulsates out of his wound in time with his heartbeat. Every breath ended in a faint moan, the quiet sounds grating Ned’s ears like knives. 

 

The man moved slowly behind Peter’s chair. Peter resumed his struggle against the cuffs, and although the screws began to rattle, the metal didn’t move an inch.

 

The man cracked his knuckles, stretched his neck, savoring the moment. Then, he hooked his fingers under the seams of the mask and addressed the camera, “World, you are about to see Spider-Man for who he really is— _Peter Parker_.” And he ripped the mask off in one swift move.

 

Peter ducked his head, trying to hide his face behind his curls. The man  _tsk_ ed and grabbed Peter’s hair roughly, jerking his head up towards the camera.

 

Under the mask, the confidence was almost gone. One eye was black, swollen shut. The marks from the brass knuckles indented his temple and blood streamed down his face, smeared by the fabric. Blood dribbled steadily from his mouth, no doubt from the wound in his stomach.

 

The gymnasium went silent.

 

Because there was no way.

 

No way Peter Parker was Spider-Man.

 

No way he had been kidnapped.

 

No way he was losing enough blood to kill an elephant.

 

No way any of this was real.

 

Ned brought his shaking hands up to his mouth, only realizing he was crying when they came away wet. 

 

A long moment passed. All was silent. Frozen.

 

Then, a wail sounded from the crowd, anguished and primal. Ned turned to see May fighting to squeeze between rows of horrified parents and disbelieving students. “Peter!” She called, her face red and panicked, her hair swinging wildly and hitting the people around her. “Peter!”

 

Finally down from the bleachers, she sprinted up to the principal. The villain on the screen was still monologuing, but nobody could hear it over her cries. “Please,” she pleaded, grabbing onto his shirt collars as looked on with wide eyes. “Please, you have to find him, he’s going to die, he’s all I have left,  _please_.” Tears streamed down her blotchy skin.

 

The principal folded her hands in his, regaining a bit of his professional air. “M-ma’am, the police are already being called, there’s nothing else I can do.”

 

”But he’s in pain—“

 

”And I can’t do anything to help him until we get a location, so please just sit down or step out.  _Please_ , or I may have to do something drastic.”

 

May didn’t reply. She had slid down to the floor, crumpled to her knees, sobs wracking her small body. She repeated, “Please, please, please,” in a constant stream. She clutched weakly at the principal’s feet as she fell apart, and he looked on with tears in his eyes, unable to do anything to lessen her pain.

 

Ned watched on in detached horror until an abrupt scream pulled him out of his thoughts. His head whipped back to the screen where he saw Peter scrunching his face in pain, his teeth gritted together in an attempt to cut off his shrieks.

 

Ned saw why a moment later; the same steak knife that had been plunged into his abdomen now pegged his hand to the armrest. Blood flowed from the wound and streamed down the chair, pooling on the floor below him.

 

”Sorry about that,” the man said to his invisible audience, “He just almost broke out of that cuff.” He wiped his hands casually on the familiar towel like a chef who had just sliced up a raw chicken breast.

 

”Now, I think it’s time for the last segment of the video, then anyone who wants him can come and get him.”

 

The man plucked a small tablet off of his table of weaponry. He held it close to the camera, blocking out all else.

 

”This,” he said, “is a powerful hallucinogen. It can cause any mix of pleasant or painful hallucinations, but I have used my knowledge of chemistry to tweak it towards the latter.”

 

Peter’s eyes snapped open. He shrunk into the corner of his chair, shaking his head back and forth in protest. The man took it all in stride. He grabbed Peter’s chin, forcing his mouth open and before anyone knew what was happening, the pill had passed his lips and was settled in his stomach.

 

The man dropped Peter’s head, allowing it to hit his chest as he walked away. He told the camera one final time, “I’m at 1672 Charleston Drive in Winnipeg. He’s in the storm cellar. Come get him while he’s still alive.”

 

The man walked off screen, and soon his footsteps faded away and a heavy door slammed shut. The camera, however, stayed rolling, focused on Peter, gently writhing in his seat.

 

For a moment, nothing happened. His small moans of pain persisted, but other than that, the room was silent and still.

 

Then, Peter’s eyes widened at something none of them could see.

 

Slowly, shakily, he said, “Ben?”

 

Silence. Disbelief.

 

Then, he screamed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ngl, almost cried writing this

Peter’s suit was melting. 

 

It must have been, right? Because the red liquid streamed from his stomach and hand, so that must have been his suit. But fuck, a melting suit hurt. He felt like his body was on fire, stinging and burning in a way that seemed familiar yet shockingly new at the same time.

 

He heard talking, an unnaturally high voice speaking smugly into a camera, but he could hardly process it. He tugged at the metal cuffs on his hands purely because he didn’t remember a time when he wasn’t doing it.

 

He was upset and angry but wasn’t sure why. Things were starting to get awfully blurry and it was all he could do to not fall asleep, to entertain the screaming of his extra sense that told him to stay alert. Something was wrong, he knew that, this man was evil and this room was cold and something huge had changed in his life, but he wasn’t entirely sure what.

 

He wracked his brain for any memory that could provide some information, some smidgen of a background, but everything came away blurry and smudged until it was beyond useless. So he just tugged, tugged, tugged at his restraints, even as the knife stuck in his hand sent bolts of pain through his body and the metal struck bone like lightning. 

 

Some of the man’s words floated through the thick jelly surrounding him, words like “almost” and “restraints” and “one last thing,” but none of it made sense any more. He recognized the words, but what did they mean together?

 

Then, he heard two words that he understood. “Powerful hallucinogen,” The man said, and Peter tugged harder, because those words meant nothing more than  _bad_. But before he knew it, cold hands were grabbing his face and something hard slipped down his throat.

 

Peter panted as the man backed away and turned back to the camera. He was still speaking, always speaking, but it was as far away as ever. Peter felt like his nine year old self, forced to take a pill by Ben for the first time and just as confused as he was upset.

 

He hardly noticed as the man left the door and closed the door behind him. The pill already seemed to be in effect. Strangely, Peter felt better than before. The camera before him was starting to come back into focus, and he could hear the man starting his car and speeding away. With this, though, the pain sharpened back to an almost unbearable screaming in his hand and stomach. How was he not dead yet? Surely he had lost too much blood by now, surely his stomach acid had begun to dissolve his intestines.

 

Peter scrunched his eyes shut as he tried to will down his dry sobs. When he opened them, however, he found something far more interesting than drab gray walls and a blinking camcorder.

 

“Ben?”

 

He saw Ben standing before him, smiling and healthy and  _alive_. He could hardly believe it. Had—had this man taken Ben when he was shot? Had Ben never truly died?

 

Ben smiled and said, “Peter,” so softly he nearly burst into tears that very moment. God, he had missed that voice so much. What he would have given to hear it again the day of the funeral, every day after, today, a year from now.

 

” _Peter_ ,” Ben said again, and Peter almost died where he stood, because Ben had only said his name like that one other time. Ben’s face was suddenly contorted in pain, and as Peter’s eyes drifted down, his hands clutched at a growing spot of red on his soft blue shirt. 

 

Peter screamed.

 

He fought against his restraints harder than ever before, so hard he saw his own hard bone begin to poke through the ragged flesh at his wrists, but to no avail. Ben fell to his knees before him, his hands stained with blood, blood that pooled on the floor as tears slid down Peter’s face with reckless abandon.

 

“No!  _No_!”

 

He couldn’t live this night again. He couldn’t answer a thousand police questions. He couldn’t go home and brush flecks of bone from his hair and watch as the water in the shower turned pink. He couldn’t listen to May sob so hard she vomited in the room over as his own tears ran down his temples and into his ears, because he could have stopped it and he did nothing. He did nothing. He was nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

 

Ben’s hands fell limp. His body crumpled to the floor. His eyes drifted off into a world of emptiness, but those deep brown eyes stared straight at Peter, unseeing and empty and  _cold_.

 

Peter fell forward in his chair, the cuffs forgotten. He slumped forwards as sobs wracked his body. Clear tears mixed with the puddle of red blood far too large for Peter to have survived, especially considering the blood thinner he had been force-fed the moment was taken.

 

He’d had a second chance and he’d failed again. He would have to go home to May and tell her that the love of her life had still been alive, but because of Peter, he was gone for good. 

 

God, maybe being locked in this hellish basement was for the best. The world would fare better without him there to destroy it. Here, he couldn’t hurt anyone. Here, nobody would die at his hand. Not anymore.

 

”Peter?”

 

Peter stopped breathing.

 

No.

 

_No._

 

”Peter, it’s me, it’s Mommy,” said a voice he hardly remembered, a voice who sang to him so long ago.

 

”No,” he choked out. “No. It’s—it’s not you. You’re dead.”

 

”Honey, it’s me. Your father’s here too, we just want to say hello.”

 

Jesus, he wanted his mother back. He wanted her to rock him to sleep on her lap, he wanted her to read him a story as he laid in bed, he wanted her to tell him that it would be alright, that her and Daddy were just going on a business trip, that they would be back in a few days, even if every word was a lie.

 

”Petey, baby, look at me.”

 

And because he wanted so desperately to believe what she had told him seven years ago, he did.

 

And there were his mother and father, back to back, skewered with a pole smeared with blood on both ends. Little globs of fat and muscle stuck to the metal, and bruises and burns littered their contorted bodies. Their teeth were stained red with blood and their eyes, just like Ben’s, were focused on him, seeing something millions of miles away. 

 

This time, Peter’s scream had no words. He simply screamed his anguish as the woman who held him like a porcelain doll, as the man who had wept real tears at his first steps left the Earth in front of his very eyes, so much worse than an image on a screen in his aunt’s and uncle’s living room.

 

Peter had no idea how long he stayed like that, screaming and sobbing as the walls melted around him and his fingers turned to ants that crawled into his eyeballs. Eventually, the silently screaming world around him began to fade into black, and the pain all but vanished from his ravaged body. 

 

Before he let himself drift somewhere far off, he thanked whoever it was who let him die. The last things he heard before the universe turned to black were approaching sirens and the splintering of a wooden door.

 

——

 

Peter almost cried when he realized that the white ceiling overhead and soft bedding below weren’t heaven. Whether it was from relief or disappointment, he couldn’t know, and he certainly wouldn’t tell.

 

His cracked-open eyes made out four figures sitting across from him. May, curled up across two hard chairs, as fast asleep as MJ, who sat on the floor, slumped into the corner. His heart skipped a beat when he saw Tony Stark’s chin on his hand, his eyes closed and his face relaxed in a way it almost never was.

 

And Ned. Ned, with tear tracks running down his face. Ned, who had kept silent about so much because he knew what secrets meant to Peter. Ned, who turned his head when Peter began to shift and whispered, “Peter!”

 

“H-hey, Ned,” Peter said, matching his friend’s volume. He winced; his throat felt like it was made of thousands of bloody glass shards, and it was made no better by his splitting headache and dry mouth.

 

Ned rushed over to Peter and wrapped him in a tight hug. Peter cried out as his wounds were jostled and Ned backed away, his eyes wide and his brow furrowed. “Sorry, dude. I was just really worried.”

 

Peter sat up, rubbing his head. “Yeah, about that,” he said, “What exactly happened? Everything after the stab is pretty blurry.”

 

”Oh! Um, so the crazy dude who took you, he yelled about some mass murder ploy—“

 

”Yup, remember that.”

 

”Punched you with some brass knuckles which probably really hurt—“

 

”Remember that too”

 

”Stabbed you again but in the hand that time, gave you some acid or something, said you were in Canada, then left while you kinda freaked out. It’s okay, though, the Canadian police found you and locked up the other guy.”

 

Peter laughed quietly, but stopped when MJ started to stir. “So I’m in a Canadian hospital, eh?”

 

Ned laughed, too. “Yeah, man, but they got the guy and you can probably go home in a week or so.”

 

”Awesome. It’s about time I crossed the border.”

 

”God, you guys are such losers,” MJ said, and Peter swiveled his head to look at her, bleary-eyed but awake and as no-nonsense as ever.

 

”And you’re sitting on the hospital floor,” Peter retorted.

 

“Dumbass. At least I didn’t get my super-secret identity revealed to the entire world.”

 

Peter laughed and settled back on his pillows, the guise of sleep already pulling him back under. “Yeah,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and letting the heavy darkness start to wash over him.

 

This was going to take some serious therapy, but at least he was alive. At least he could go on to save a few more people, anonymous as ever.

 

Then, Michelle’s words sunk in. And so did the meaning behind them.

 

Peter shot straight up, his eyes wide.

 

”Oh,  _fuck!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m singing a full solo song at a showcase tomorrow and I’m so fucking scared anyways please comment I really thrive off of verbal validation!!!!  
> Edit: I was crap but that’s ok bc so was everyone else

**Author's Note:**

> Comment please! Concrit is always appreciated!!


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